


Hello My Old Heart

by xLoveMx



Category: Scorpion (TV 2014)
Genre: AU, F/M, Waige - Freeform, scorpion
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-11
Updated: 2015-04-15
Packaged: 2018-03-22 10:35:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3725593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xLoveMx/pseuds/xLoveMx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The last time Walter O´Brien saw Paige Dineen was at her High School Graduation. He knew that he hadn´t always been the best boyfriend, but he hadn´t thought he was bad enough to suddenly have her disappear from his life without a warning. So when he runs into her ten years later by chance, both of them find themselves confronted with a past they had been trying to ban from their minds...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this is an alternate take on the show/relationship between Paige and Walter, and I know the first chapter doesn´t give much away, but if you can bear with me then I promise it´ll get more interesting. Please feel free to leave a comment! Thanks for reading! x

Change was not something Walter O´Brien dealt with very well, unless it was a change that he could calculate, like the seasonal coffee offers at the coffee shop down the street. It was easy to calculate when they would switch from pumpkin spice to gingerbread lattés or when the posters would display refreshing beverages instead of hot chocolate with marshmallows. Cabe Gallo bursting into the Warehouse, which Walter had made his home, had not been something he could have seen coming though.

“What the hell?” Happy came up behind her work bench, only momentarily distracted by Toby, who had almost fallen off his chair. Toby might have gotten in trouble with some people for playing them at poker before, but she wasn´t sure that this called for the government to burst into their place and come to get him. Her eyes fell on Walter, who seemed to have stiffened at the sight of the agent who was standing before them. He was obviously in charge, the others were simply there to await orders, but when they didn´t immediately arrest anyone Happy relaxed a little, but still fixed her eyes on the agent.

“Get out,”

It wasn´t the reaction she had expected from Walter. Sure, he had no problem with telling people the facts and he didn´t really see the sense in protecting their feelings, but telling a federal agent to ‘get out’ when he had obviously bursted into their place for a reason wasn´t exactly something you did, not even when your name was Walter O’ Brian and you had the fourth highest IQ ever recorded.

“I wouldn´t be here if I wasn´t desperate, trust me,” the man answered, his eyes fixed on Walter.

“Trust you? Is that supposed to be some kind of joke?” Walter shot back and Happy made a point to step between them.

“Alright who´s this and what the hell is going on?” she asked, only briefly catching sight of Sly, who had taken to hide behind the couch.

“This is Federal Agent Cabe Gallo, we worked together a few years ago. It was…unfavourable.” Walter replied, not taking his eyes off the man as he spoke to Happy and she had a slight suspicion that there was more to this than her boss let on. Still, she knew that she was in no position to ask.

“Put it aside, O´Brian. I need you.” The tone in which the man spoke was serious, but then again he was a federal agent who worked for the government and Happy suspected that they probably always spoke in a serious tone. “Forty-five minutes ago there was an automatic software upgrade in the LAX control tower, it had a bug. Now the entire system is down,”

At his words, Happy´s eyebrows shot up. “All communications are down?” she then asked, glancing over at Walter before looking back at the agent.

“Contact´s been lost between Long Beach, LAX and Burbank. 56 flights are out of communication range. NSA is trying to work a satellite hook-up, FBI is attempting a Morse code signal from the observatory. We need you on software. Without landing guidance these airplanes will run out of fuel and…”

“Crash. They will crash.” Sylvester, who had come up behind the couch, added, a slight panicked look on his face. “Walter we can´t let them crash!” he practically pleaded, but Walter´s facial expression hadn´t changed over the last minute and even now, as he spoke again, his cold expression didn´t waver one bit.

“Sounds like catastrophe is imminent. So go find someone else, now.”

Even Happy couldn´t quite believe what she had just heard. Walter might have not been big on emotions, but letting innocent people die when they had a chance to save them? That wasn´t something they could let happen. She was about to speak up when agent Gallo did, still looking straight at Walter.

“How about a certified federal check over 50.000 dollars in each of your pockets? I ran checks on all of you. Mechanical prodigy. World class shrink. A human calculator. A group of geniuses working at half capacity. You wanna do something meaningful? Here´s your chance.”

Of course Walter wasn´t heartless, as people would often call him. It was a weird expression, because without a heart he would be dead, but he knew they referred to his lack of emotional connection. Still he could tell that the others weren´t on the same page as him, which was probably the reason why Happy was pulling him aside now. Walter gave her props for at least trying to break this down for him logically, because she knew that something was up and yet chose not to ask him about the matter. He had never forgotten about Cabe Gallo, how could he? And he didn´t trust the man, not anymore. Paying them 50.000 thousand dollars each wouldn´t change that. Still. Happy, who was looking over at Sylvester and Toby right now, was right, without the money, and him, they would fall back into old habits and despite his lack of emotions he did care about them in a special way, and as a cyclone, something Walter liked to call them, they took care of each other.

“Time is running,” Agent Gallo reminded them and Walter´s eyes met with his for a second. He had to put his personal problems aside, he knew that, so he simply took a few steps closer to him, nodding.

“Alright.”

-

Thing weren´t exactly looking up, especially not with how slowly they were moving through traffic. They wouldn´t reach LAX in time to get the software deleted and re downloaded, which was probably why the tension in the car seemed to rise with every second. It wasn´t until agent Gallo told them all to shut up that Walter completely ignored him to make a suggestion.

“We don´t even need to go to LAX. We just need a reliable Wi-Fi signal that won´t go down. Sylvester: Didn´t you fix one the other day?” he looked over at his friend who nodded, seemingly relieved about the information.

“Yes, yes. It´s just about…4 streets down and then on the right. Not exactly my favourite place…and they could be a little more thorough with the cleaning, but the Wi-Fi is top.” He confirmed, which caused the agent who was driving them to go faster.

Sylvester had been right. The diner didn´t exactly look like the newest, and cleanest, spot in town, but neither of them really cared about that now. What they needed was a good Wi-Fi signal and that was given there, so when Agent Gallo entered the diner, declaring that they would need it for government purposes, they all simply followed him inside, not really paying attention to the slightly confused guests who were ushered outside by the other agents.

It wasn´t until Walter heard a rather familiar voice call out for, what he assumed was the owner of the diner, that he looked up and his eyes fell on the woman behind the counter. For a moment he stood frozen, and somewhere in his head there was a voice crying out for him to get it together and to move, because this would be heaven for Toby to analyse, but Walter couldn´t move.

“Paige.”

-

_Sometime 10 years ago._

Paige actually liked studying, and apart from some boring classes she actually liked going to school. What she didn´t like was the fact that they had about ten books to carry around the whole day, books that were heavy and didn´t even fit into her locker. Still, she needed to carry most of them around because she didn´t want to go back to her locker after every class. She let out a sigh and moved to balance them around as she tried to close her locker door without putting the books down, but apparently today wasn´t her lucky day. She could see the two books on top of the pile sliding off, but there was no way that she would be able to catch them, not without dropping the rest of the books too. Paige only hoped that they wouldn´t end up falling onto her feet, so she simply closed her eyes and waited for the fall.

There was no noise though, and therefore no sign of the books hitting the floor, so after a few more seconds she dared to open her eyes again and found a young man staring at her, her books in his hands. “You know it´s actually quite easy to balance these books safely. With the right calculations as in how to pile them and how to hold them you could minimize and even completely eliminate the risk of them slipping out of your grip,” he nodded, giving her a smile that indicated how proud he was of his suggestion and somehow Paige didn´t doubt that he was already making these calculations he had talked about in his head. She hadn’t seen him around in school before, so she assumed that he was new and somehow she felt a little responsible for him, because with the way he talked he would be labelled as a nerd in no time and that wasn´t exactly something you liked to be called in this school.

“Or…you could simply help me carry them,” she then suggested with a slight chuckle as she moved to hand him three more of the books so she could comfortably carry the other four and close her locker.

The young man seemed to be taken a little aback by her simple suggestion, but he didn´t complain. Instead he took the books and waited for her to close the door before she could give him further instructions.

“I´m Paige, Paige Dineen.” She then smiled as she began walking down the corridor, which he took as an invitation to follow her.

“My name is Walter O´Brien. I´m assuming you´ll want me to say that it´s nice to meet you,” he then said, looking over at her. His words caused Paige to let out another chuckle.

“You´re an odd one, aren´t you? And well, if you think it´s nice to meet me, then yes. It would be appropriate of you to say that. If it´s not then I´d probably be a little disappointed, “ she laughed, glancing over at him. There wasn´t exactly a reaction coming from him and well, Paige should have known. She might have only just met him, but he was definitely different from all the other boys in this school, but that wasn´t necessarily a bad thing.

He didn´t say another word until they had reached Paige´s classroom and she had begun wondering if she had said something wrong when he placed the books on her table and glanced back at the door.

“It was nice to meet you, Paige Dineen.” Walter then nodded and there was a hint of a smile on his face, causing Paige to grin back at him.

“And it was nice to meet you too, Walter O´Brien,”

-

_Present Time._

It had been a quiet day so far, but then again nothing really ever happened in this diner, so when the door suddenly flew open and a bunch of men in suits, which Paige assumed were working for the government, followed by a group of rather normal looking people came bursting into the diner she stood still for a moment, giving her boss a rather confused look. It wasn´t really helping that he was planning on leaving her alone with these people so she could keep an eye on the diner and close up eventually, but before Paige had been able to complain he had disappeared through the back door.

She had quickly moved to where her son Ralph had been sitting at the counter, staring at the salt and pepper shakers, like he had been for the last hour or so. Paige had to make sure that he was okay and wouldn´t get scared, Ralph wasn´t exactly a people person so she was afraid that a big group of people, looking a tad scary, would make him nervous. She didn´t quite make it past he first few words of her planned sentence though, because suddenly a familiar voice was calling out her name and she frowned, looking up.

It was then that her eyes found Walter in the midst of this group of people. She must have not seen him come in and she wasn´t even a bit surprised by that, it had all happened rather quickly and Paige had been occupied with trying to keep her boss from disappearing and taking care of Ralph. Now that she could see him standing there her stomach twisted and for a moment Paige didn´t know what to say. She eventually managed to get something out though, not able to take her eyes off him, even if every fibre of her body wanted to run.

“Walter.”


	2. Chapter 2

Paige had dreaded this moment for the past ten years and despite the fact that she´s had those ten years to prepare for it she had no idea what to do or say. She simply stood frozen for a moment, eyes fixed on her ex-boyfriend. How high were the chances that he would stumble into the diner she had been working at for the past two years? Walter would probably be able to give her the exact calculations for this and that thought almost made her laugh. Still she could feel her stomach twisting when she looked at him. He still had the same dark curls, those mysterious eyes and even the shirt he was wearing looked like the ones he had worn all those years ago and Paige would place a bet that he still bought them at the exact same store, but the smile…the smile was gone. She still remembered just how proud she had been of herself every time she had managed to make him smile.

For the longest time Paige had managed to remember him that way. Smiling and slightly confused at times when she did something he hadn´t been able to calculate, like kissing him on that summer day by the pool side before throwing him right into the water. She had been able to push away her pain and hurt, and the guilt of simply leaving him that way and without a word, but right now, seeing him standing there, shocked and almost paralysed, much like herself, Paige felt all the guilt and pain return at once. She had seen him upset before, but mainly because of a problem he couldn´t solve quickly enough, never because of her. Walter had always been good at hiding the feelings that were definitely there, but right now he seemed to be wearing his heart on his sleeve, it was obvious, to Paige at least. She didn´t know who these other people were, or if they knew him well enough to tell that something was wrong, not that it really mattered. She had spent countless nights awake, thinking just what she would do if this moment ever occurred, but none of these nights had been able to prepare her for this. It felt like time had frozen for a moment, or so she hoped, because then none of the others would have caught them staring at each other like complete idiots. Paige knew that she should be saying something, but what could she possibly say after disappearing out of his life like that?

“Alright, this is starting to get freaky,” A voice, one that belonged to a dark haired woman who had come in with everyone else, pulled them out of their trance and Paige looked over at her. “And if we don´t get this to work then a lot of people will die,”

That seemed to do the job because suddenly everyone was moving again, setting up computers and speaking in terms that Paige didn´t quite understand. Still, Walter´s eyes stayed fixed on her for a moment longer and she desperately wanted to say something, anything, but all of a sudden nothing made sense anymore, no apologies she had come up with, no explanations, and the truth was not something she could tell him, even though Paige knew that she should.

It only took a moment longer before his eyes finally tore away from hers and within a split second he was back to the Walter she had known all those years ago.  “Happy, script post check for after the system stabilized! Sylvester, run the odds on the patch linking back into the software, we do not want the same problem tomorrow! Toby, look for sabotage.”

Within a few seconds he was on a laptop, looking around to make sure that everyone was working on their assigned tasks and it felt like he had never even seen Paige standing there.

“If we screw this up brains and guts will be bouncing out all over town…” one of the men, seemingly the youngest of the team, said, eyes fixed on the computer in front of him.

“Actually fuel tanks ignite on impact, you won´t find a body part,” the woman from earlier chimed in and Paige´s eyes grew wider. She had no idea what the hell was going on here, but it didn´t sound like nothing, that was for sure.

“Well actually…” the other guy, whose name Paige remembered to be Toby, started but he didn´t get to finish his sentence, because she went to interrupt him.

“Hey, please. Watch your language around my…” she stopped and looked back at Ralph for a moment. He had always been a quiet child so she sincerely hoped that he wouldn´t correct her now. “…around my eight year old. Be decent in my place of work? Thank you.” she looked at the group of people, silently praying for her son to not say a thing when it came to his age. For a moment it was quiet in the diner and when there was no reaction, neither from Ralph nor from any of the others, Paige quickly turned on her heels and moved to wipe one of the tables. Not that any of them needed wiping, but she really didn´t want to stand around like an idiot or end up staring at Walter more than it was healthy for either of them.

There was talk about things she didn´t quite understand once more than, something about hacking into airport security and deleting and reuploading encrypted software. There had been a time when Paige had understood a few of these things, when Walter had tried to explain them to her, but that had been years ago. For now she was simply standing there, blending into the background while the man she had once loved was trying to save planes, which would otherwise be going down, along with a group of people who seemed to be on the same IQ level as him. Well, maybe not quite the same, but they came close at least.

Paige moved to stand next to Ralph, a hand coming to run through his hair softly, but there was no reaction. Her son simply kept staring at the salt and pepper shakers, moving them around. She sighed then, wishing that she simply wouldn´t have gotten up for work today.

-

“Wait…so you really hacked into NASA when you were eleven?” Paige asked with a slight chuckle as she rolled over onto her stomach, chin resting in her hands. “And yet they let you work with kids here? I mean, aren´t they afraid that you´re going to teach them just that and then soon everyone will be hacking into NASA?” Of course she was only teasing, but that wasn´t exactly something Walter was familiar with, so he shook his head at her question.

“That´s not something you can teach. I mean I can teach the basic coding and maybe even some advanced procedures, but I´ve only managed to come that far due to the fact that my IQ is the fourth highest ever recorded, I mean…”

“Yes, I know. Even Einstein´s IQ was only 160. You´ve mentioned it before,” she then laughed, pushing at his shoulder softly. It wasn´t the first time Paige had done it, but he still seemed to be a little confused by it.

“And besides: I am not teaching coding to these boys. I´m simply holding a tutoring class in algebra after school for those that need a little help with it.” he then added to his previous thoughts and it was almost as if Paige hadn´t even said anything in between. That was something she would still have to get used to, but she was convinced that there were worse things.

After their little run in last week she had been trying to figure out in which year or classes he was, since he couldn´t be much older than her, but it had taken her almost a week to figure out that Walter had already gotten his High School degree and a college student teaching a class at Paige´s High School to make some extra money. She wasn´t quite sure how he had gotten his hands on that job, but in the end it didn´t matter. He surely was a complicated person, but also a rather intriguing one, much more interesting than all the boys, or all the people really, in this school and probably also in this town. That was also the reason why Paige had asked him to hang out with her, even though she could tell that Walter didn´t really see the efficiency of sitting on a blanket in a park without actually doing something. Still, she was glad that he hadn´t told her no.

“Oh? So if I ask you to tutor me in algebra, will you?” she then grinned, leaning in a little closer to him, something that obviously confused him even more.

“Well…do you need tutoring in algebra?” he then asked back and Paige´s grin got even wider as she shook her head.

“No, no I don´t.” she replied, reaching out to touch his cheek briefly before a laugh escaped her throat.

To Walter, Paige was the most confusing person he had ever met, and he had met a lot of people. Sure, they were all a little confusing in their own way, especially when they got involved with feelings and emotions, which were not efficient at all, and yet there was something about Paige´s smile and her presence that made Walter feel good and if a small smile found its way onto his face, well then he would let it.

-

“Walter, I know this might not be the right time, but are you alright?” Happy´s voice caused him to look up and he barely managed to refrain from glancing over at Paige, who was still wiping tables at the other end of the diner.

“Yes, of course. These people on the planes won´t be though if we don´t get this done in time.” He then said and Happy knew better than anyone that this meant that whatever had happened a few minutes ago was not something he wanted to talk about. Walter had never really been someone who had talked about his past much, and it seemed like this woman was part of it, but Happy knew that he was right. They needed to figure out a way to save these planes first before they could figure out any other things that might have needed figuring out, so she simply rested her hand on his shoulder for a moment before moving back to her own laptop.

Walter had never really been someone who dealt with emotions and feelings very well, which was probably why he pushed them as far away as possible and simply pretended not to have them.  Still, seeing Paige again, the only person who had ever managed to figure him out somehow, who had been able to make him forget about calculations and logic, even if it had been just for a  moment, had hit Walter harder than he would have expected. The things that had happened ten years ago, when she had simply disappeared out of his life without a word  and left him with no explanations, were the exact reason why he had never engaged with someone on a deeper level. Surely, before Paige had come along he had simply not been interested in these kind of things, but ever since she had disappeared it seemed like he simply wasn´t able to get the same connection with anyone else. It was not something he talked about though, or had ever mentioned to anyone really, so no one in this place knew about his past with Paige, it was something that Walter kept to himself.

He still remembered the last time he had seen her. It had been her High School graduation and he had sat in the audience, clapping along with everyone else when her name had been called.

_Paige Dineen, Summa Cum Laude, Graduating with Honors._

He had been incredibly proud of her that day, picking her up in his arms when she had come running towards him. She had changed him, Walter had to admit that much, and back then he had actually believed that a life with Paige could have been a possibility. He was aware that he wasn´t exactly an easy person to be around, but when Paige had suddenly disappeared the day after her graduation, when not even her parents had known, or maybe they simply hadn´t wanted to tell him he didn´t know, where she had gone to, Walter had started to wonder what exactly he had done wrong. Paige has always made sure to tell him if something had been wrong, so this hadn´t been like her at all.  
Surely, he could have used his hacking abilities to track her down, it wouldn´t have been too hard, but Walter knew Paige, and he knew that, if she disappeared without telling him, she didn´t want to be found and the least thing he could have done was to respect that.

It wasn´t like he hadn´t been tempted to track her down, he had needed to hold himself back more than once, one time he had even thrown a laptop out of the window, but over time he had built up his walls again, trying his best to erase her from his mind. She was simply taking up space that he needed, but there had always been something about her, something special that made it impossible to forget her smile, her laugh, how her fingers had intertwined with his or the way her lips had tasted.

He had never really forgotten about these things, but he had been able to push them to the back of his mind, but now that Paige was actually here, just a few feet away, it was all becoming so vivid and Walter had to force himself not to constantly look up at her.

It was enough that he had gotten hurt because of her, the people on those planes couldn´t suffer just because he couldn´t keep his emotions in check. Walter had built up the walls she had so easily torn down all those years ago once more, he would just have to build them even higher now.


End file.
